Unfortunately Brian Singer wants to write/direct Batman vs Superman movie next, which I have no doubt he'll screw up like he did Superman Returns.

Specifics....

The plot was unoriginal.  In fact, it was a slightly modified version of Superman 1.  Instead of using a missile to cause california to sink into the ocean he just "grew" a continent instead.  Same end result.  Problem is that the plot in THIS movie is absurd.  Luthor was always a brilliant villain, frequently outsmarting Superman (who let's face it isn't the brightest hero in the JL).  HOW Luthor in SR thinks he could get away with growing a continent is beyond me.  Did he think no one would notice? 

Second, Superman wasn't himself.  What I mean is Superman was always the pure, wholesome nice guy due to his small town upbringing.  Knocking up Lois and then bailing for Krypton is absolutely NOT in character for Superman.  If you remember in Superman 2, he sacrificed his powers to be with Lois to show his commitment to her.

Next he brought back a rock from Krypton, yet it served no point to the story.  Why was it even mentioned?  Should of hit the cutting room floor in post production editing.

The continent in laced with Kryptonite, nearly kills Superman, yet he later picks it up and throws it away?  As to that fact, did Superman NOT think that Luthor wouldn't have a way to deal with him?  This movie is basically Superman 5, so that means Superman *has* fought Luthor before and *has* been zapped by kryptonite before.  This really portraying Superman as being "dingy" or naive to me.

Kate Bosworth was horribly miscast as Lois Lane.  Last time I saw such a bad miscast was when Ar-nuld was cast as the brilliant scientist Mr Freeze in Batman & Robin.

All this movie has is flashy effects.  Weak character development.  Unoriginal plot.  The fact that the 2nd week gross dropped 60% also shows that many people realized Mr Singer has NO IDEA what he was doing when he wrote the story.  Almost like he had never read any comics, just watched a few Smallville and rented Superman II, then said "hey I'm a fan lemme write the movie!" to the producers.

As good as Batman Begins was, Superman Returns is that disappointing.  The really sad thing?  I got a free pass to see it at the theater and I still think I wasted 2.5 hours of my life.

If there is a Superman Returns 2, let's hope they get someone to write/direct it that knows the lore.

Yeah right....

Turbine killed AC2 what like a month after they released an expansion?  They made their quick bucks on the code they already wrote then killed the game.

Besides, once the merger/buyout goes through Mark won't *be* in charge anymore.....

A sellout that is all he comes across to me.

When he said originally there was no plan to join/merge with EA I was glad.  EA has a terrible track record when dealing with smaller companies (origin, westwood) and I thought that Mark showed that Mythic had more integrity to fall for the all mighty dollar sign.

Looks like he been feeding us Grade A 100% American BS the whole time.  It's too bad, DAoC is a great game and I have a lot of fond memories playing it.  I am absolutely certain that EA will either (1) kill it or (2) change it to unplayable.

Looks like no Warhammer for me now as I do not and will not buy or play any EA games.

Mark ya screwed up big time!

If SOE wanted to win over some former players the Ad Packs would be free content.  Rather silly that you have to pay for a patch.  Other online games don't charge you for a content patch, it comes with the price of the subscription.

However, since I know SOE cares about  money first and customers second, an idea that may fit better in their philosophy would be it's free for everyone after 60 days.  So, they can make a quick $5 off the impatient players, but keep others happy knowing they will get in in 2 months.

Just my 2c worth...

WoW was fun til Blizzard decided that endless rep grinding and mind-numbing raiding was The Fun Thing To DO at 60.  Basically, WoW becomes like EQ1 at 60, if you don't raid there is no point in playing anymore.  They refuse to add non-raid content for some reason.  In patch 1.10 they said it was for the casual non-raiders, but it was a joke.  A series of quests that require large sums of gold, grinding and items from every profession (which require more gold).  There are some Raid Guilds that gave up on doing the "casual" quests!  It was easier for them to get the epic raid loot than the dungeon loot sets. 

EQ2 almost had me last year.  I quit 2 weeks after its release (for WoW) because despite prettier graphics it was an EQ1 grind fest.  Months later I get an email for a Free 7 Day Trial for former players to see all the improvements.  Well heck, I can afford free so I gave em a shot.  You know what?  I actually *did* enjoy EQ2!  Subscribed for 1 month after my free week and began working on my monk and necromancer.

Then the "combat upgrade" hit....

I cancelled 3 days later and uninstalled.  SOE sure has a knack for borking up things when they were going good.  I'm sure many SWG players would agree with that. 

The big problem I see with a hero defecting (and vice versa) is they would lose all their contacts.  So, a hero in rogue isles would then find he has one contact probably and then has to begin grinding out missions to build up a contact list again.  Not being able to buy inspirations or having to run acrosse 3 zones to get to someone who will sell you same would really be The Suck.

Plus I can't really see a "good" Stalker, they *are* essentially assassins after all....

The early villain missions are actually quite boring and repetative.  Everyone is in the same zone, doing the same missions.  They added that 2nd villain starter contact to try and fix that isse.  I never have that problem with heroes as I am going to many places and fighting many types of baddies.

Yes, a lot of the running around is tedious until you hit 14.  At this stage of the game (least on my server) there are usually friendly heroes ready to offer ports across zones.  I sometimes park my warshade in hollows by the Atlas zone and perform taxi service for about 15-20mins.  I feel their pain in having to sprint from the southeast corner. 

WoW has the easiest leveling curve of all the MMOG's I've played.  I had four 60's and a few mid 50's when I finally quit.   I get more satisfaction playing City of Heroes/Villains now than I did playing WoW.

Plus the Hollows isn't that bad, I rather enjoy the Frostfire mission and the Cavern trials. 

DAoC isn't dead but it took a bad wound with Trials of Atlantis.  That single expansion turned it into an Everquest Clone with the ridiculous grinding and raiding needed to do anything.  Had that expansion never existed DAoC would be boasting far larger numbers, of that I have no doubt.  DAoC has the small but strong fanbase similar to EVE Online, not near WoW numbers but enough to keep the servers on and the content coming.

Warhammer will not be a WoW clone, though I am sure there will be comparisons.  The Warhammer universe is much different from Warcraft.  For one thing I expect a lot of siege warfare in Warhammer, where there is none in WoW.

I hate to repeat myself but I am still dubious about 100k+ subscribers for DAoC.  If you check current numbers of people playing, it is typically around 17k or so total for all servers.  That would mean nearly 85% of their subscribers don't play at any one time?  Doesn't sound right to me.

EA simply has a very bad track record when they acquire a company.  Where are Origin and Westwood nowadays?

Oh and as to the EA Sports comment, I found the ESPN games to be far better (less expensive too).  Now instead of working to develop a better product to beat the competiton, EA just wrote a check to the NFL to *prevent* competition with an exclusivity deal.

I bet it won't take long before EA "consolidates" Mythic into the EA Collective and DAoC becomes proudly brought to you by EA alone.

As an absurd tidbit about EA, when I was beta testing Earth & Beyond there was actually a patch that made the EA logo stay onscreen for 10secs.  Usually, you could click  your way passed the company logos to the login screen but EA actually told Westwood to prevent *their* logo from being bypassed.

At this rate, in a few years all games will be either SOE or EA, in which case I may have to find a new hobby.

I am rather dubious about that stat sheet.  According to that EQ1 still has over 400k subscribers?  VERY doubtful as they had to consolidate servers last year.  You don't consolidate all your servers if you have 400k subscribers.

I suspect that is being inflated as I read an old article years back saying SOE counts anyone who subscribe at any time "a subscriber" for their stats.  So, even tho I haven't played EQ since Planes of Power, I am still be counted as a subscriber by SOE for stats.

It also shows 300k for SWG, which I doubt very much if they have even half that.

PvP can easily make or break a game.  It depends on the game itself and the people who play it.

EQ1 was never really a pvp game.  The first servers to be consolidated when subscribers started declining were the pvp servers.

EQ2 could of had some pvp potential of Qeynos vs Freeport, but SOE never bothered to develop that and went back to the old EQ1 model of leveling grinding.

WoW and DAoC both are pvp oriented games.  Yet they also allow non pvpers to play, have fun and advance.  Neither game "forces" you to pvp if you don't want to.

EVE Online is graphically beautiful and a nice change of pace from a sword & sorcery MMOG, but the hardcore pvp aspect I'm sure has kept its subscriber numbers much lower than they could be.

If LOTRO is going to be successful I would say they should do a pvp model similar to WoW or DAoC.  Have a pvp gank-fest server for those people that want 24/7 pvp action.  Have a restricted "casual" pvp server for the rest of the players.  What people have to remember, both developers and players alike, is that not everyone enjoys pvp.  Getting "wtf pwned" at level 1 by a level 20 is a sure way to lose a subscriber, who will then tell all his friends not to play.

Whatever storytelling magic Lucas had poofed sometime after the last Indiana Jones movie.  The Star Wars prequels were so bad one would think they were written by someone who had no idea what Star Wars was.  Which is very sad since Lucas wrote both original and prequels.

Between the mess that is SWG, the awful prequels and that 90% of star wars console games suck.  I think Lucas needs to either (1) retire or (2) go to film school.

I have to agree with another poster, my EA boycott just added Mythic to the list.  Which is sad, because since I left WoW I was thinking of returning to DAoC. 

EA has *NO* track record with MMOG's I don't know how Mythic thinks so.  They didn't make any at all, they acquired UO and Earth & Beyond from companies they bought, then shortly disbanded.  Since EA acquired those 2 companies how many Ultima games or UO expansions have there been?  How many Command & Conquer games have been release?  If you answered "none" grats you get the gold star!

Let us not forget that EA has a class action lawsuit going against it for failing to pay overtime wages to hundreds of employees.

When EA Sports had some competition from ESPN sports games, did they work to develop a better product?  Nope!  They just wrote a check to the NFL for exclusive rights, essentially barring anything but Madden 200X football games for a while.  EA doesn't want competition, they want a monopoly.

EA also attempted acquiring Ubisoft but that didn't go through (thank god).

I am certain that if Mythic hadn't acquired the developing rights to Warhammer, EA wouldn't care about wittle ol' Mythic.  I am also certain that when Warhammer Online is release it will be "brought to you by EA", Mythic won't be mentioned.

For all you DAoC players out there, I'd start looking for a new game EA's track record indicates that Camelot will be axed not long after EA takes control.  Why?  Simple, EA cares only about money and DAoC isn't bringing in 100k+ subscribers. 

/mourn Mythic

/rude EA

**Elementalist Class**

Races:  Blood Elf, Undead, Troll, Human, Gnome, Draenai

A pet class similar to the warlock, but instead of enslaving demons for pets, elementals are the pets.

Earth Pet:  High Armor, High Health, Low DPS, High Nature Resist

Air Pet:  High Dodge, Low Armor, Med Health, Med DPS, Moderate Nature resist

Water Pet: High Health, Med Armor, Med DPS, Med Health, High Frost resist

Fire Pet: Low Health, Low Armor, High DPS, High Fire Resist

Like the demonic pets they would have trainable abilities.  Such as the Fire Pet having an AE fire shield, Fireblast, etc.

They would have magic debuffs instead of Curses, but they would be mostly Fire/Frost/Nature based.  Such as debuff targets STR (earth), reduce attack speed (water), reduce hit rate (air), increase damage taken (fire).

I was fortunate to be in the beta and I had very high hopes for this game.

Rating the game a 6 is being very generous.

If it were a free to play, like Guild Wars, I would say it's worth the money to get the cd's.  The game lacks the depth of other MMOG's due to all the instancing.  Plus early on, it was very everquest-like in that it was near impossible to solo as you leveled up.  I have read they are fixing that issue, but still isn't enough incentive for me to subscribe.  I can only go into the same door in the same city to fight the same rats so many times before I'm bored outta my mind. 

Very well written article, really hit the nail on the head so to speak.

You could replace SWG with "Everquest" and the article would still apply.  I think in broader terms it is showing that SOE as a whole doesn't understand how to properly manage a MMOG.  They have always been notorious for ignoring customer concerns and doing what they felt best.  In the case of SWG it had come back to bite them... hard.

I even tried EQ2 with the hopes SOE would learn from the mistakes of their other games.  Quit 2 weeks after release.  Several months later I got an email for 1 week of free playtime to see the new improvments (meaning, correcting things to compete with WoW).  I actually did enjoy the game then, so I subscribed for 1 month.  Two weeks into that month they did the EQ2 "combat upgrade" and I cancelled next day. 

I really think they need to understand as a company the concept "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" when considering any major changes to their games.